The present invention broadly relates to weaving machines and, more specifically, pertains to a new and improved construction of a filling-thread insertion or delivery gripper for a rapier or gripper weaving machine.
Generally speaking, the filling-thread insertion or delivery gripper of the present invention is intended for flexible insertion band or tape or insertion rod type rapier weaving machines and comprises a transport clamping tongue or element lying against a stationary clamping jaw or member mounted in the filling-thread insertion or delivery gripper to form therewith a clamping slot for clamping the filling or weft thread or pick to be inserted into the weaving shed.
In other words, the filling-thread insertion element or gripper of the present invention comprises a stationary clamping jaw mounted in the filling-thread insertion element or gripper, a transport clamping tongue having a free end and a direction of longitudinal extent and lying against the stationary clamping jaw to form conjointly therewith a clamping slot for clamping a filling or weft thread or pick which is to be inserted into a weaving shed of the rapier or gripper weaving machine.
In a heretofore known insertion or delivery gripper of this type, known for instance from the Swiss Patent No. 592,761, patented July 31, 1977 and cognate with the U.S. Pat. No. 4,071,055, granted Jan. 31, 1978, the transport clamping tongue comprises a pointedly converging free end having the same degree of rigidity as the remaining tongue portion. The entire transport clamping tongue is made of sheet steel. This transport clamping tongue is not able to act elastically in relation to the clamping jaw in a direction transverse to its longitudinal direction or extent. If two or more weft threads or picks, so-called double-picks are to be simultaneously inserted into the weaving shed of a rapier weaving machine with this arrangement, then only one of the threads can be clamped securely in the clamping slot between the clamping tongue and the clamping jaw and the remaining weft thread or threads can easily be lost or become disengaged from the clamping slot during weft thread insertion (mispick). The clamping action is only optimized for a single thread. For the other threads the clamping action is more or less weak and is not sufficient to attain reliable thread clamping.